Clair, a pioneering fintech company offering Earned Wage Access (EWA), originated by national bank Pathward, announced that it has raised $23.2 million in its Series B round led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from existing investors including Thrive Capital.
A large percentage of people live paycheck-to-paycheck, and 83% want to receive their earnings in real-time; however, they rarely have access to low-cost and transparent options. After medical insurance and on-demand access to pay is the most requested feature by America’s workforce, making it a must-have employee benefit.
At the same time, employers’ increasing adoption of high-tech payroll and human capital management platforms provided a ready market for embedded instant access to earned wages. Many of these platforms are seeking an experienced and compliance-minded fintech solution to integrate EWA directly into their applications.
Clair provides an intuitive experience that enables employees to bridge the cash flow gap between paydays, with seamless integration for employers. This solution meets the needs of employees, employers, payroll, and HCM platforms, and an evolving regulatory environment.
Employees can advance their earned wages to solve their liquidity needs; employers attract and retain talent with this highly desired benefit. And Clair can offer its partner platforms high confidence that EWA is here to stay through their partnership with a national bank.
Gusto partnership: Clair announced its partnership with Gusto, an integrated and all-in-one software platform that automates and simplifies company payroll, benefits, and HR. And since launching in July 2024, employees have ranked this as one of their favorite features, and 43% of customers take their first advance within 2 minutes.
KEY QUOTES:
“We have crossed 29,000 business locations, and this Series B is arriving at the right time to allow us to double down on this solution. We strongly believe that payroll and workforce management providers are becoming workforce super apps, and embedding instant wage access as a simple 3-click solution right from the scheduling or payroll app they use every day is a major untapped market covering over 50M U.S. employees.”
Nico Simko, CEO and Founder of Clair
“This partnership with Gusto validates the team’s deep understanding of employee needs, the culmination of years of user obsession. The opportunity in front of Clair is massive, and Clair’s elegant workflow and ability to integrate with a wide variety of partners make them uniquely positioned to bring Earned Wage Access to millions more workers.”
Aditi Maliwal, General Partner at Upfront Ventures
